Temecula school board to consider more layoffs

Nonteaching employees could lose their jobs

TEMECULA -- The school district is looking at cutting 29
nonteaching positions next year as part of an effort to cut next
year's budget, a move one union official called "Draconian" and
"premature."

District officials have recommended eliminating 16 bus driver
positions, as well as several clerks, warehouse personnel,
secretaries and other nonteaching positions. The district also has
recommended cutting hours for three clerks at schools with low
enrollment, according to school district spokeswoman Melanie
Norton.

Rob Wilber, a representative for the local chapter of the
California School Employees Association, said Friday that the
district is acting without knowing exactly how much state revenue
they will receive in the fiscal year that starts July 1.

"The district has created a premature sense of urgency with
respect to the 2008-09 budget and they're taking Draconian measures
presently that aren't financially, at this point in time,
justified," Wilber said.

The school district, however, says trustees must act soon
because they don't expect to receive new information about the
budget by May 16, when Norton says the district must notify
nonteaching employees that they could lose their jobs.

"We're not really optimistic there's going to be any budget news
anytime soon," she said.

Wilber said nonteaching employees feel like they are "bearing
more than their fair share of cuts" because the district already
has floated the idea of permanently reducing the number of days
that classified employees work, therefore decreasing their
earnings. However, Wilber said the union is not likely to OK a
reduction.

School trustees will discuss the potential layoff notices, known
as pink slips, on Tuesday and are expected to vote on the proposal
later this month.

The measure comes on the heels of pink slips being given to more
than 200 Temecula educators and about 18,000 teachers and other
employees in the teachers union statewide, according to the
California Teachers Association.

When Temecula issued layoff notices to its teachers, the
district had to follow a complicated process in which employees are
ranked according to their seniority and are given points for
desirable characteristics, such as having a master's degree or
teaching credentials. Because 175 Temecula teaching employees tied
with others who were hired on the same date and had the same number
of points, the district held a lottery Monday to rank those
educators.

A state official will review the district's layoff notices in a
hearing Tuesday and Wednesday. A similar hearing will take place in
Lake Elsinore on Friday regarding that district's pink slips.

Temecula has been criticized for issuing a large number of pink
slips, 202, in preparation of eliminating an expected 111 teaching
positions. By contrast, Murrieta has issued 27 pink slips and Lake
Elsinore has notified 14 permanent teachers that they could be laid
off.

Norton said the larger number of layoff notices stem from both
the district's declining enrollment and smaller budget reserve.
Superintendent Carol Leighty sent a message to district staffers on
Friday expressing hope that the district will be able to rescind
some of the pink slips it has sent out so far.

In 2003, the last time school districts sent out pink slips,
most of the teachers who received preliminary layoff notices
ultimately kept their jobs. But that's cold comfort for teachers
such as Luz Elena Perez, a teacher who works in the district's main
office and who received a pink slip along with her husband, a
Chaparral High School teacher.

Perez said she and her husband are on edge waiting to see what
happens to them.

"That's really tough in a household where we're both
breadwinners who decided to devote our lives to teaching," she
said.